TRUE-CRIME DOC IS AS CONFUSING AS THE DEATHS

How does a young man's dramatic story of survival at sea transform into an accusation that he murdered two members of his wealthy New England family?

- Story by TATAT BUNNAG

That is the question at the centre of The Carman Family Deaths, Netflix's latest true-crime documentary one built on grief, wealth, suspicion and the painful fractures of a family that never recovered.

Friends and relatives recall longstanding tensions and divided loyalties, but what emerges is a case where compelling narratives overshadow clarity, and where the truth still feels maddeningly out of reach.

Have you heard of the Carman family deaths? This documentary is a twisty, sometimes bewildering story full of doubt, assumptions and the lingering possibility of a miscarriage of justice wrapped in layers of dysfunction and extraordinary greed. Not exactly uplifting, I know. What makes it especially frustrating to watch isn't simply the presumptive nature of the police investigation, but the way the documentary itself is assembled. For a case this complicated, the film offers an unexpectedly shallow level of insight, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers.

The central events surround an extremely wealthy family in which Linda Carman, one of four sisters from a multimillion-dollar lineage, vanished during a fishing trip with her autistic son Nathan. From the very beginning, both police and armchair detectives zero in on Nathan. His regimented, somewhat flat explanations during interviews - given after he alone survived being stranded at sea while his mother disappeared - immediately made him the focus of suspicion.

Nathan's aunts, Linda's sisters, also believe he is responsible, even though only one of them appears in the on-camera interviews. And then, layered atop the suspicions surrounding Linda's disappearance, investigators and family members alike begin suggesting that Nathan may have been involved in the earlier death of his grandfather.